Tesla chief executive Elon Musk has revealed that the Autopilot system blamed in a recent Pennsylvania crash involving a Model X wasn’t even enabled.
Musk said on Twitter that “Onboard vehicle logs show Autopilot was turned off in Pennsylvania crash. Moreover, crash would not have occurred if it was on.”
Immediately after the crash, Tesla said it was unable to determine if Autopilot was or wasn’t activated during the incident, due to a damaged antenna. Seemingly however, further investigation into the crash was conducted by the electric automaker to determine if Autopilot was indeed to blame.
Earlier in the month, a silver Model X hit a guard rail, was thrown across a number of lanes, into a concrete median barrier and then flipped onto its roof. The driver, Albert Scaglione, also blamed Autopilot for the crash.
This crash was the second blamed on Autopilot after a fatal accident involving a Model S in May. Investigations into this crash have found the Autopilot was partly to blame, as it failed to recognise a white trailer against the brightly-lit sky.
Despite calls from some consumer groups to halt public testing of the firm’s autonomous driving system, Elon Musk is standing behind the technology and refusing to disable it.
Onboard vehicle logs show Autopilot was turned off in Pennsylvania crash. Moreover, crash would not have occurred if it was on.— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 14, 2016
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